"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

Contents:

News in General

Atlanta Linux Showcase

The Atlanta Linux Showcase is being presented by the Atlanta Linux
Enthusiasts and Linux International on June 7 and 8 in Atlanta, Georgia.
For more information, write to Atlanta Linux Showcase, P.O. Box 78491,
Atlanta, GA 30357-2491 or see the web site at:

GLUE is a project of SSC
publishers of Linux Journal. GLUE was implemented
to provide a world-wide member group for Linux User Groups. GLUE member
groups receive a subscription, materials for promoting and developing
their group, a way of advertising their group in a global setting, list-serv
and Linux Group location services, and discounts and samples from SSC and
Linux Journal. Other vendors may also offer special services or
discounts to GLUE member groups.

SOLID desktop for Linux offered free of charge to developers

Solid Information Technology Ltd today announced a campaign
targeted at the community of Linux developers. Between March
and September 1997 Linux enthusiasts will be presented with
a free personal version of the robust SQL database engine
SOLID Server.

SOLID Server is a unique product by Solid Information Technology
Ltd, a privately held innovator of database
technologies.

Linux Jokes Wanted

Do you consider yourself witty? Do you want to show your fabulous sense of
humor to the world? NOW IS YOUR CHANCE!

For several years now Linux Journal has been considering adding a monthly cartoon to
our magazine. We know who we could have "draw" the cartoons, but we really
don't have any idea what the jokes should be.

Please contribute any ideas you have for "Linux related" cartoons. The type
of cartoon we are imagining are one panel cartoons akin to what they have in
magazines like the New Yorker.

So send us your
favorite Linux jokes (one liners are best), and we will turn them into
cartoons.

AfterStep Themes Page

Version 7 of Corel's WordPerfect for Linux

Software Development Corporation http://www.sdcorp.com is working on
releasing version 7 of Corel's WordPerfect for Linux. It's expected to
ship sometime in April, with beta testing currently taking place.

Their webpages seem to warn that only beta testers have access to the
software, but following the links takes you to the download area where
they're freely available.

Computer Comparison

Here is a URL that has some interesting data:
http://fampm201.tu-graz.ac.at/karl/timings30.html
This web site is maintained by Karl Unterkofler, and has comparisons of
various computers running the latest versions of Mathemetica. Karl and
others run a series of tests on the machines, that involve timing
mathematical problems.

8 of the 10 fastest machines are running the Mac OS! the first windows
machine doesn't make a showing until 11th place( a pentium pro 200Mhz
running Windows NT 4.0) Incidently this ppro 200 is beat by a Mac 7500
150 Mhz!

You might wonder how this can be when the SPECint95 for Pentium Pros and
for Power PC 604's are so close? Its the operating system dummy!

What do I mean?

The Intel machines and the Macs are pretty equal, its Windows that slows
things down. If you check out the URL you'll see that although 8 of the
top ten are Macs or Mac clones, 2 of them are Intel pentium Pro 200Mhz
machines. Sadly for the Mac, the number one spot is a Pentium Pro 200
with 64 Meg RAM and a 256kb L2 cache running LINUX 2.0.27.

This barely beats the number 2 machine, a 225Mhz Power Tower Pro from
Power Computing with 256 Meg RAM and a 1Meg L2 cache.
The other Intel in the top 10 is a Pentium Pro 200Mhz with 128Meg Ram and
256Kb L2 cache, running NeXT STEP 3.3.

I don't think that Mac owners should be ashamed of losing to a LINUX
machine. LINUX is the result of an amazing effort put forth by many
dedicated programmers to produce a state of the art 32bit operating
system that utilizes hardware to the fullest. Mac users should be happy
that they can go head to head with such an OS, and still maintain the
great human interface of the Mac!

The only other contender is a NeXT machine! Wait'll your windows friends
see redbox!
Oh, BTW the first Win '95 machine doesn't make a showing until 15th
place. its a Pentium pro 200, 64 MB, 256kb, OS: Win95 and is just below a
PowerMac 7600/120, 48MB, 256kb, MacOS!

So if a windows user tells you their machine is faster, tell them that
you know...if they switch to LINUX.

Word Processor for the Linux Environment

The development of 'wp', a word processor for the Linux environment has
recently been started. Although it's primary goal is a Linux-based word
processor, wp will eventually be available for many other platforms.

WP is an open system, object orientated, and object driven; written mainly
using C++, although little code has of yet been written. The current
objective is a full design specification/mission statement and determining
the current products that can be used to help the development of the
product further.

Because of this openness, it is proposed to have the user interface
seperate from the main program; the reason for this meaning that the user
can choose whichever interface suits them best, from a ncurses driven text
interface to an X-Windows display using different widget sets.

If you wish to obtain the design specification notes for wp, they are also
available at the above site.

A FAQ is currently being prepared, if you have any questions or
suggestions, please send them to wp@squiznet.demon.co.uk

If you wish to contribute to the project in any form, please contact
paulc@sunsite.unc.edu and introduce yourself, a copy of which will be sent
to the wp-developers mailing list unless you specifically state that you
do not wish for this to happen.

Software Announcements

Xcoral 3.0

Xcoral is a multiwindow mouse-based text editor for
the X Window System. It contains a built-in browser that enables you to
navigate through C functions, C++ classes, Java classes, methods and files.
It also contains a SMall Ansi C Interpreter (Smac) which is also built-in
to extend the editor's possibilities
(user functions, key bindings, modes etc).
Xcoral provides variable width fonts, menus, toolbar,
scrollbars, buttons, search, regions, kill-buffers, macros and
undo. An on-line manual box, with a table of contents
and an index, helps you to use and customize the editor.
Xcoral also offers facilities to write Latex documents
and Html pages.
Xcoral is a direct Xlib client and runs on color/bw
X Display.

OS: SunOS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.[45], LINUX, AIX, HPUX,
IRIX and OSF-1.

Changes from xcoral-2.5:

New browser for C/C++ and Java.

Standard X selection mecanism.

Toolbar

Some bugs fixed...

Beta Version of EM86

The Linux/Alpha team at Digital Equipment Corporation
today is releasing a developers' beta version of EM86, a Linux/x86
emulator for Linux/Alpha. Using components of the
DIGITAL FX!32 technology, EM86 is a software emulator that enables
Linux/Alpha systems to run Linux/x86 software without modification.

EM86 currently supports statically linked and dynamically linked x86
ELF32 binaries under Linux/Alpha. Future enhancements will include
support for iBCS-2 compliant executables, improved emulator performance,
and interoperation with native Alpha code. A release incorporating
these features is anticipated in July, 1997.

They are releasing a beta version of EM86 at this time to provide
Linux developers early access to the software, to aid in the
verification of software packages, and to provide feedback and bug
reports to the Linux/Alpha team.

The following Linux/x86 software packages run successfully on this
beta version of EM86, with some qualifications as described in the
README file included in the distribution:

XForms V0.86

XForms is a graphical user interface toolkit and builder based on Xlib
for X Window Systems. XForms is a portable and efficient C library
that can be used in both C and C++ programs.
The library works in all visuals and all depths (1-24) and comes
with a rich set of objects such as buttons (of many flavors, including color
XPMs as labels) , browsers, sliders, and menus integrated into an
elegant event/object callback execution model that allows fast and
easy construction of X-applications. It also has OpenGL (on SGI) and
Mesa support.

XForms comes bundled with

Precompiled library (static and shared) and header files.

Source code for 50+ demonstration programs;

Precompiled fdesign, an interactive GUI builder that can
be used to design dialogues in a WYSIWYG way and to output the
corresponding UI code for you.

250+ pages of indexed documentation (tutorial and reference) in both
PostScript and html

perl, ada95, python and fortran bindings to xforms are in alpha/beta.
Please visit the xforms' home page for more info.

Debian 1.3 Available for Beta Test

Debian 1.3 is now in beta test. We are performing a month-long test
with an organized quality control team. If you'd like to be an official
beta tester, please contact Dale Scheetz dwarf@polaris.net .

Freedom Desktop Lite Announced (1.01)

Announcing the public availability of the Freedom
Desktop Lite. Freedom Desktop Lite is a
desktop environment/GUI integrated to the Unix
environment. It
helps users interact with Unix quickly and efficiently. Freedom
Desktop runs transparently in a variety of Unix environments,
from Desktop computers (i.e. Linux) to enterprise workstations.

The Freedom Desktop Lite environment bundles the following
applications: